The Great Light Rail Chase of 2008

Yesterday, it felt like I was in an action movie.

It started when I left work. I was two blocks from the light rail station, in downtown San Jose, when I saw the southbound train cross Santa Clara Street. On any other day, I would have let it go, but I was impatient to get home and didn't feel like waiting fifteen minutes in the cold for the next train. So I ran.

An observant person sipping coffee at the Starbucks on the corner of Santa Clara and Third would have seen a thin, dark-haired man in his thirties, wearing khakis, a heavy jacket, and a backpack bouncing on his back, sprinting down Santa Clara Street. If asked to describe the man's running style, the same observer might have said, "He ran like a drunken camel."

I slowed slightly as I approached Third Street because the intersection is notorious for red light runners, but resumed my dromedary-like gallop once I was sure it was safe.

Past Hank Coca's Furniture I went, then past Dive Bar, with its neat red and yellow neon sign showing a woman in a swimsuit and swim cap diving into an imaginary pool, and finally past Toons, the nightclub that sits on the corner of Second and Santa Clara.

The train was still at the station as I reached the platform, but the doors were already closing. I could have stuck my arm between the doors and triggered the safety mechanism that would have reopened them, but I hate it when other people do it, so I didn't.

A quick aside: I'll always remember the time when two teenagers held the train at the Ohlone-Chynoweth station for over a minute so their buddy could get on. One kept the doors from closing with his foot while the other kept sticking his head out and shouting, "Hurry up, man! Come on!" I think everybody onboard secretly hoped the doors would shut on the kid's neck.

Instead of obstructing the doors and earning the wrath of my fellow riders, I made eye contact with the driver in his side view mirror, hoping he might take pity on me and reopen the doors. What happened next is hard to describe because it happened so slowly and quickly at the same time.

For what felt like a minute, but was likely a few seconds, the driver and I looked right at each other. I'm pretty sure I had a pleading expression on my face. The driver's expression was what most people would call impassive. He simply stared at me, rang the bell signaling that the train was about to move, and then looked straight ahead as it pulled away from the platform.

It was one those oh-no-you-di'n't! moments.

At this point, most people would have given up, and under different circumstances, I would have, too, but now it was personal.

As the train started towards the Paseo de San Antonio station, I leapt across the tracks and sprinted down Second Street in pursuit.

Two observant guys drinking beer at Tres Amigos, near the corner of Second and San Antonio, would have seen a sweaty, dark-haired man, wearing khakis and a heavy jacket, running towards them and trying his best to get through the crowd that had just gotten off the train. In all likelihood, one of the guys would have said to the other, "Hey, Mike, five dollars says that idiot accidentally mows down the granny with the grocery cart." The other would have replied, "You mean the fool running like a wounded coyote? Deal."

It was thirty yards of insanity, but I somehow managed to spin and dodge everybody that crossed my path without losing too much ground. Luckily, just as I cleared the crowd, the train slowed next to Tres Amigos to let an oblivious pedestrian cross in front of it, the driver smiting the clueless soul with the full force of the train's horn. Thank goodness for oblivious pedestrians.

I was just reaching Tres Amigos myself when a woman in a motorized wheelchair pulled out in front of me. With the train on one side, the bar's patio tables on the other, and a tree and wheelchair in between them, there wasn't much room left on the sidewalk. There was a small opening to the woman's right I could have slipped through, but it was too narrow for my taste, so I put on the brakes.

By the time the woman got past the patio, the train was crossing San Antonio. From where I stood, it was only a hundred yards to the platform. It was now or never. One final sprint would get me on the train, so I went for it, or at least I tried to.

I had barely taken three steps when a bicyclist came barreling around the corner. Instinctively, I wheeled out of the way and avoided the collision. In an alternate universe, I yelled, "Bike lane, pal!" In that same universe, I was brutally bludgeoned to death with a bike. Oddly enough, I think if I had been walking, I wouldn't have been able to get out of the way in time.

Shaken, I regrouped and charged across San Antonio, quickly reaching the train as it pulled into the station. I jumped onto the platform, stopped short of the doors to let people off, took another second to regain my composure and what remained of my dignity, and got on the train.

If I had been more with it, or if this had been an actual action movie, I might have given the driver a knowing glance before boarding and yelled something macho and heroic like, "Yippee ki-yay, Mother Hubbard!" (That's a PG-rated imagination for you.) But since this was reality, all I did was quietly slip through the doors and plop down in an empty seat, exhausted from the effort.

As the doors closed, the man sitting across the aisle from me, an older businessman in gray suit and tan trench coat, smiled and said, "It took two stops, huh? Glad you made it."

It would never be a classic line in a movie, but it was good enough for me.